Lightning strikes twice in Colorado

ROCKY MOUNTAIN NATIONAL PARK — For the second day in a row, lightning has been blamed in the death of a visitor at Rocky Mountain National Park.

Officials were notified late Saturday afternoon of four people being struck by lightning near Trail Ridge Road, park spokeswoman Kyle Patterson said. The four were rushed to a hospital, but Gregory Cardwell, 52, of Scottsbluff, Neb., died of his injures.

“We didn’t see the bolt. It was just a white flash. It just felt like something hit you in the back of the head and just kind of jolted forward,” Mary Ivarson, who wasn’t far from Cardwell, told KMGH-TV in Denver.

Ivarson said she and others performed CPR on Cardwell for 15 to 20 minutes until rescue crews arrived.

“His T-shirt and stuff was burned from the lightning, but we were just trying to help him,” she said.

On Friday afternoon, park officials said lightning killed one woman and injured seven other people near Trail Ridge, which is the nation’s highest continuously paved road.

Patterson said they are the park’s first lightning fatalities since 2000.

A park news release identified the woman who died Friday as 42-year-old Rebecca R. Teilhet, of Yellow Springs, Ohio. Efforts to reach Teilhet’s family Sunday were unsuccessful.